The present invention relates to a dynamic cardiac quality assurance phantom system and method. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method which utilizes a mechanical phantom to simulate major performance parameters of the heart, and which is accordingly useful in evaluating systems used for gated cardiac studies.
Recent developments in the field of cardiac monitoring have resulted in the employment of systems comprising the combination of a camera and a computer for employing imaging techniques to monitor and evaluate the performance of the heart of a patient. More specifically, such known systems employ a camera to view the heart of a patient so as to develop image information with respect thereto, and a computer for receiving and analyzing the image information in order to develop data relative to the major performance parameters of the heart. Such major performance parameters of the heart include the fraction of blood pumped by the left heart per beat (ejection fraction), the motion of the left heart muscle (contraction) and the variability of these two parameters as a function of heart rate. Moreover, the standard technique is rather involved.
For example, the patient is typically subjected to a cardiac catheterization procedure. Alternatively, a nuclear medicine procedure is employed in order to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of the heart performance.
In view of the rather involved technique employed, it has been considered advantageous to carefully and continually evaluate the operability and effectiveness of the camera-computer system. That is to say, it is considered desirable to frequently perform efficient and precise evaluations of the camera-computer system in order to preclude the occurrence of faulty operation of the camera-computer system on the day that the patient is to undergo the testing procedure.
In addition, users of such camera-computer systems have a need to establish quality control techniques for evaluating their purchased system. Thus, such users have a need for a system and method for precisely evaluating the performance, operation and accuracy of the camera-computer combination.
Finally, more and more companies are developing such camera-computer systems. This results in the development of a need, among users of such systems, for a technique or system for precisely evaluating the camera-computer combination for the purpose of comparing the camera-computer system of one company with those of other companies.